Archives for United Arab Emirates

Vienna/Istanbul – An Austrian woman who says she was a rape victim was sentenced, in absentia, to four months in prison by a Dubai court Monday on charges of having sex and drinking alcohol, the Austrian Foreign Ministry reported. The 29-year-old Austrian student had reported to Dubai police in early December that she was raped… » read more

Turkmenistan has broken Russia’s stranglehold on its gas exports by opening a pipeline through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. The country’s president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has just made his first trip to New Delhi where the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project was discussed. Earlier this year a short pipeline was opened in order to increase exports to Iran, and gas is in the process of being identified for eventual export to Europe via a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline and the EU’s Southern Corridor. The era of Russian control over the country’s exports is over, and Ashgabat is taking care to make certain that it is not squeezed between Moscow and Beijing.